


The Family Reunion Job

by taxicab12



Series: we change together [3]
Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M, M/M, Nate knows things, too many things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:53:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24854134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taxicab12/pseuds/taxicab12
Summary: Nate Ford was bad at new places.When he was forced to leave Los Angeles, the city where he’d married and raised his son, he went running home to Boston, the city of his youth. After he had to leave again, he found a new home, one with a purpose and no ties to the past.LA and Boston? Those had been his past, places he’d settled in, drunk and lost and afraid. But Portland? Portland was new, Portland was a future.But it wasn’t his future.
Relationships: Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer, Nathan Ford & Eliot Spencer, Sophie Devereaux/Nathan Ford
Series: we change together [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1792609
Comments: 12
Kudos: 143





	The Family Reunion Job

It had been nearly a year since he’d been in this restaurant. 

(Nate Ford was bad at new places.

When he was forced to leave Los Angeles, the city where he’d married and raised his son, he went running home to Boston, the city of his youth. After he had to leave again, he found a new home, one with a purpose and no ties to the past.

LA and Boston? Those had been his past, places he’d settled in, drunk and lost and afraid. But Portland? Portland was new, Portland was a future.

But it wasn’t his future.

So, he ran off, to new and exciting places, to a future without his darkness.

But he still left some roots in Portland.)

He entered alone, let himself be amused as the waitress sat him down and read him the specials.

Sophie was late, checking in with some old friends from her old theater and with the storage unit of her stuff she’d left behind.

He ordered, not particularly hungry, but this was Eliot’s restaurant so the food was bound to be amazing, even if the place had still been coming together food-wise when Nate had left. Well, technically, it was Hardison’s restaurant, but Nate wasn’t a fool.

So, he ate his lunch and, deciding Sophie was certainly running late, he flagged down the waitress.

“Is the chef in?” He asked, not letting his expression show how rhetorical the question was.

Eliot’s expression changed only slightly upon seeing Nate, sliding into the seat across from him. “What’d you do with Sophie?”

“She’s shopping,” Nate said. “Or acting? She’s around.”

“Shopping,” Eliot asked, “or  _shopping_?”

Nate shrugged. “Business seems good.”

“You’ve been keeping tabs on us.” It wasn’t a question.

“I meant the restaurant,” he said. “But yes. Why, you have something to hide?”

“No,” Eliot said, a solid, resounding answer, but one that led to doubt nonetheless. “Last I heard you were in Vienna.”

“Well, I’ll let Sophie tell that story.”

“Why are you here?”

“Am I not welcome?” It wasn’t really a question either.

“No,” he said. “I just... we weren’t expecting you.”

Six years since that first job in LA, and Nate was still surprised that he had learned to read Eliot Spencer like an open book. The way he held Nate’s gaze, the word choice that was not quite thought out, the way he said the simple word  _we_. He said everything Nate had needed to know.

“Where are Parker and Hardison?”

“How should I know?” Eliot growled.

Nate didn’t answer, just held his gaze.

Eliot scowled, but then quickly softened. “You should know something, since you’re here.”

Nate knew exactly what he was about to say, it would have been hard  not to know, even though no one had said a word to him about it in the past year. It was the small things, how Parker wrote her texts and where Eliot stood when they had video calls.

“We’re dating,” Eliot said, “the three of us. Have been for a while.”

Nate took a long sip of his drink (water, uncharacteristically). “I know.”

“How could you possibly have known that?” Eliot scowled again, but this one held a hint of relief.

(Hardison had had a hand in all three offices Leverage had, but Portland was his creation and his alone. Nate had let him build the tech for the LA offices and hadn’t been able to stop him from doing the same in Boston, but for Portland, Nate had done nothing except name the city. Hardison had chosen the base.

And he chose a base with high ceilings, for Parker, with a restaurant, a _restaurant_ of all things, as the cover.

He hadn’t been sure that any of them knew what they were doing, but he had been sure of this: he had no future in Portland, but they did, the three of them.)

Nate Ford gave his sleaziest, least believable smile. “Lucky guess.”

“They’ll be home in twenty minutes,” Eliot said (and Nate liked the way he said that word  _home_ , as if he meant it.)

“Sophie should be on her way,” Nate said. “She’s excited to show off some of her new things.”

Eliot returned to the kitchen, sliding back into his seat, two beers in hand and all tension gone.

They looked at each other for one more long moment, then each took a sip.

(“They work alone,” Nate had said, that day in a hotel bar in LA. “They always work alone.”)


End file.
